Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,157

from their siblings for couples who wanted to adopt babies.

Speaking of babies….

Katrielle lifted her chin then and took a deep breath before again shifting the subject. “What did you think of the other people who were in the Monsters garage when Faith revived her friends?”

“There were more than fifty people there. Any in particular?” Victoria asked so quickly it was almost flippant. She knew damn well who Kat was alluding to. Victoria was smart; she was astute and keen. She knew.

“You tell me.” Kat glanced over at her companion – just in time to see Victoria look down at the table and flush slightly. It was quite a thing to see a Golddust flush. The blood that rose to her cheeks was not red. It was gold. On darker skin, this flush would appear as a type of glow, radiant but often disguisable as bronzer or highlighter. In someone fair however, it glistened too much to ignore. And for someone like Victoria who was not only fair but yet had the remnants of the original magic the Nomads had placed on the golddusts long ago, it became a very light pink flushed with tons of shimmer. It was quite fetching, actually.

It was only too bad it was also very telling. It would have given her away as a Golddust if not for the fact that her eyes, hair, skin, and nails did so already.

“I thought so,” said Kat. “You noticed him, then.”

Victoria hesitated, the flush darkening, the shimmer turning festival-worthy. It was fortunate Golddust blood didn’t oxidize in the same manner iron did, otherwise Kat could imagine their blushes might be something like green rather than gold. They were also lucky magic prevented them from weighing a lot more than they did due to gold being four times heavier than iron.

Victoria swallowed hard and stood up, no longer comfortable staying seated and in one place. The fight or flight instinct was kicking in already and all Kat had done was mention the presence of an Aurum. It would most likely be best not to ask her whether she noticed that he had noticed her too.

Or maybe that was what had her so fidgety. Maybe she did notice that.

“There’s no way he could have seen me through all of that dirt, right?” Victoria asked, as she turned around and began pacing. “I mean, I paid a mage to put all kinds of iron in that dirt. It was like I was walking around in layers of blood. I could smell it.” She made a face and shook her head. “No. He couldn’t have known.”

An ordinary Aurum so soon after feeding on Golddust blood and on a day when so much was taking place might not have noticed Victoria’s presence. But, golddusts literally gave off a sort of sensation around Aurums, announcing their locations to goldblood vampires.

Their proximity acted as a kind of drug on any Aurums who had not recently fed on them, quelling fear and inhibition and fueling lust. They usually had this sort of effect on vampires in general, in fact.

Katrielle supposed this sensation they gave off may have been a survival trait long, long ago, back when Aurums joined with golddusts much more frequently to breed with them in exchange for their blood.

But those days had come and gone and soon Aurums were struck with the bloodlust they called “gold fever” to an epidemic degree. As a result, golddusts were reduced to a mere handful before the Nomads had stepped in to protect them.

So much time had passed since then, Aurums were accustomed to never meeting golddusts in person, or at least not being aware that they had. They might chalk up a passing “high” as perhaps random giddiness or something in the blood of someone they’d just fed on. They would never suspect it had been a Golddust in their proximity.

So it was possible an ordinary Aurum would not have recognized Victoria for what she really was. Not under all of that dirt and all of those clothes. Not on that day, when so much was going down.

But, there was nothing ordinary about any single member of the Monsters warden clan. Including Nathan Connor. So of course the “Aurum” in question had indeed noticed her.

But Katrielle didn’t tell her that. Nor did she tell her that if Nathan Connor wanted to find her again, he would most likely find a way to do so. She didn’t even tell Victoria that this might not in fact be such